A NATION CHALLENGED: THE CIVILIANS; U.N. Official Urges Restraint in Bombings to Avoid Casualties

The head of the United Nations refugee agency called today for ''self-restraint'' by the United States and Britain to prevent civilian casualties in the bombing of Afghanistan.

Ruud Lubbers, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said the attacks should be focused on the terrorist network Al Qaeda and on its Taliban protectors to avoid the perception that the bombing is an attack on Afghanistan's people.

Mr. Lubbers's plea came as the bombing entered its 24th day, with new strikes tonight on Kandahar, Kabul and other centers of Taliban strength. From its start on Oct. 7, the campaign has been marked by targeting mistakes, pilot errors and equipment malfunctions that have caused civilian deaths, though the Pentagon has said the mistakes have been far fewer, with fewer casualties, than the Taliban have alleged.

''Airstrikes have to be focused, in a specific way, to bring down terrorist camps, and to bring down those supporting them in the Taliban leadership,'' Mr. Lubbers said at a news conference at the end of a three-day trip to Pakistan. ''If this goes on, with more and more civilians killed, I don't think it will help to say, 'O.K., let's break for two days or two weeks.' We need to get self-restraint.''

At another point, Mr. Lubbers addressed his plea directly to President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, whose government, alone among the United States' allies, has taken part directly in military operations in Afghanistan. Britain has provided air reconnaissance of possible targets and air refueling for some of the American aircraft involved in the bombing.

British special forces have also carried out reconnaissance and other missions inside Afghanistan.

''I do hope that those who are planning military action will understand that it has to be targeted at ending terrorism, and at those who protect terrorists, and that it should not become a war against Afghans,'' Mr. Lubbers said.

Mr. Lubbers coupled his call for greater care in the bombing with tough words for Pakistan's military leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, whom he met here earlier today, and for the Taliban, whose ambassador, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, he met after the news conference. The meeting with the envoy was highest-ranking contact the Taliban has had with any foreigner since Sept. 11.

Mr. Lubbers sought assurances for the safety of his staff in Afghanistan and a halt to what the United Nations said had been the looting of some of its offices and warehouses. He said he had told Mullah Zaeef: ''Don't loot our property. Respect our people, don't threaten them, and let them do their work.''

Despite repeated complaints about Afghans being subjected to ''terrorism'' and ''genocide'' by the American bombing, the Taliban have halted virtually all relief work by the United Nations and other organizations, and have appropriated many of their vehicles and other equipment for military use.

After weeks of urging Pakistan to open its border to hundreds of thousands of Afghans the agency says have fled their homes to escape the bombing, it switched tack during Mr. Lubbers's visit, saying it had reluctantly decided to accept the general's decision to allow only ''particularly vulnerable'' refugees to enter Pakistan. They would be confined to 20 remote camps that the relief agency has been constructing close to the border in Pakistan's unruly tribal lands.

Mr. Lubbers said up to 300,000 Afghans could benefit from Pakistan's offer to admit ''humanitarian hardship cases,'' including single women and children, the elderly, the sick and the disabled.

The appeal for restraint from Mr. Lubbers, a former Dutch prime minister, was notable, coming from a political leader from the West, where nations have been most steadfast in support of the American military campaign. During his tenure as prime minister, the Netherlands sent troops and aircraft to take part with the United States and Britain in the allied military operations in Bosnia, which at one point involved heavy allied bombing.

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Mr. Lubbers made his remarks after visiting sites along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, where some Afghans have fled the bombing. The Taliban have claimed that bombing has killed more than 1,000 Afghans, a figure the Pentagon has called greatly exaggerated.

The bombing errors have increased calls for a halt to the strikes, particularly from Muslim nations like Malaysia and Indonesia, but also from relief agencies operating in Afghanistan.

Several of those groups, including Oxfam International, a British-based aid group, called last week for a bombing pause so that relief supplies for an estimated six million vulnerable Afghans can be distributed ahead of the winter, which has already arrived in the high mountains.

It was Oxfam's appeal that Mr. Lubbers appeared to be referring to when he said that a break of ''two days or two weeks'' would not help if civilians continue to be killed.

His remarks came hours before the broadcast of a television interview with Pakistan's president, General Musharraf, who appeared to back away from previous calls by his government for a bombing halt during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-November.

When the start of bombing led to increasing protests across Pakistan by Islamic militant groups, General Musharraf called for bombings of limited duration, perhaps a week or 10 days. On Friday, in an interview with foreign newspaper and magazine reporters, he said that if the bombing did not achieve its objective of toppling the Taliban ''within a certain duration,'' it should be abandoned in favor of a political strategy that would unseat the Taliban.

But today the general appeared to have abandoned that position, or softened it, in the interview with Reuters television. The interview came a day after the general had a lengthy meeting with Gen. Tommy R. Franks, head of the United States Central Command, which directs the campaign in Afghanistan.

''One has to achieve the objective of the military operation,'' General Musharraf said. ''I only hope this is achieved before Ramadan. There is a possibility.''

But if that did not occur, he said, he would not make a halt in bombing a condition for Pakistan's continued support when he meets President Bush at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York next month. ''I would discuss the matter with him, but I wouldn't be pressing him as such,'' he said.

At one point in the interview, he said he saw the growing possibility of a revolt against the Taliban that would pave the way for another government and end the need for the bombing.

''No, it's not wishful thinking,'' he said, when pressed about the prospect of desertions in the Pashtun tribe, which accounts for an overwhelming majority of Taliban leaders and fighters. ''Who is the head of the Pashtun? Not the Taliban.''